By Karen E. Thuermer, AJOTPut on your life jackets. We are heading for more economic stormy waters. Infuriating gridlock among lawmakers in Washington, DC nearly assures another downgrade in the U.S. credit rating. Debt challenges among European Union (EU) member nations, natural disasters such as the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and torrential rains in Thailand, uncertainty and unrest in the Middle East, and other events point to a world economy treading into unchartered waters. Worse, no leader anywhere has yet been able to keep the world economy from drifting. Storm clouds and high winds prevail. During a National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) economic forum held in Washington, D.C. in October, several industry economists warned of a 40 percent risk of a double -dip recession in the United States; 60 percent in Europe. “Europe is a slow motion train wreck,” said Timothy Gill, director of economics at the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA). Dan Meckstroth, chief economist for the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI), told NAM forum attendees that the United States is not in a recession “because of an increase in pent up demand for durable goods.” But he pointed to continuing factors that pull negatively at the U.S. economy: gridlock in government, disappointing job growth, stock downgrades, the downgrade of the U.S. debt, and trepid growth of housing. “While every month four million jobs are created, the problem is job destruction is greater,” he said. Industry Sectors Weigh InBut amongst the doom and gloom were stated glimmers of hope. Chad Moutray, NAM’s chief economist, pointed to the motor vehicle sector looking especially positive. U.S. auto manufacturers are known to be gearing up for larger increases in production. “We’ve never seen the percentage of demand so high,” stated Jenny Lin, senior economist, Ford Motor Co. Other positives to the industry, according to Bruce Belzowski, assistant research scientist at University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, who was not at the NAM event, is how auto companies have restructured, brought in new management, reduced their factory footprint, and right sized their number of employees. Also key was how the government bailout of Chrysler and General Motors (GM) made it possible for these companies to restructure so that they could break even at producing 11 million vehicles. “Today they are producing a little over 11 million vehicles,” Belzowski said. “GM and Ford are profitable and Chrysler is near profitability.” Lin stressed how the industry has not seen so many uncertainties, however, regarding fuel prices. “Gas prices affect the choice of automobile,” she said. But then, what has the auto industry learned: to continue to invest in improving fuel efficient cars. Fuel costs, and the cost of steel, however, are impacting the industry. Meckstroth pointed to manufacturing in the transport sector as being strong, particularly in aerospace and heavy duty trucks. “These are up substantially,” he added. Focusing on the housing market, Emil Berendt, chief economist for Owens Corning, states that his company’s business is impacted differently than other sectors. “The insulation business is driven by new housing starts, commercial and industrial construction activity, and stringent building codes,” he said. He projected that while home prices are still declining, the fallout in the housing industry may be nearing the end. NEMA’s Gill expected the economic recovery for the electrical manufacturers sector to be uneven. “It would not take much to knock us back into a recession,” he said. NEMA expects this sector to be slowing quite a bit despite the fact the industry is very global. Forty-five percent of this industry is in lighting, and 40 percent of its domestic demand is fulfilled by imports from places like Mexico and China. “We are a net importer,” he said. “Exports play an unimportant rol